Get ready for whimsical art, watercolor forests, and plenty of skull eating.

Ahead, across the river, lies my foe's most precious possession: a stone shrine. The enemy's healer monk, summoned from that very shrine, has grown far too powerful during battle. At this point, my only hope for victory is to run my fastest horseback rider across a field of dead bodies to break that shrine down and claim the monk as my own.

But not yet. I've ordered the horseman to stand down and let another army's infantry, who hold the higher ground at the bridge, deal with the oncoming troops. We have a tenuous alliance, and before I break it, the horseman will grow more powerful by feasting on a pile of bones strewn along that bridge. Then he will ride unafraid.

Skulls of the Shogun's cartoon skeletons and watercolor forests might make it seem like it doesn't deserve such a pompous description. Really, though, despite the light-hearted aesthetic, this turn-based strategy game has a tight gameplay core that lends itself to memorable situations like these. The game also serves as a relatively undaunting entry into what can be a very complex genre, keeping its controls and character classes simple without emulating the experience-point progression or tragic losses of games like XCOM and Fire Emblem.

SotS also saw a glaring gap in the modern turn-based strategy genre—namely, multiplayer—and built a turn-based system that is equal parts ingenious and old-school. The results are so watertight, you'd swear developer 17-Bit got its start as a board game company.

The solo campaign serves primarily as a tutorial, and you'll want to burn through at least half of its six-or-so hours before taking your own armies into multiplayer. The campaign has players progressing through a samurai-laden afterlife as a skeleton warlord with revenge on the brain—or, at least, in the hollow place in his skull where a brain would be. The unfolding story packs enough comedy to keep the mood light; it's not riotous, but the dialogue always ducks out before it becomes tiresome.

Each player takes turns doling out commands to his/her troops, moving and attacking until all but one of the battle's generals have perished. Each turn is limited to five “orders,” which consist of a single soldier moving, performing an action, and then moving again. Unlike grid-based games (Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem), movement happens within circles—as if you used a ruler to move troops in a tabletop game of Warhammer. This works well with the way 2D terrain is arranged in SotS's maps and makes it so after-action retreats are less effective if you moved farther at the outset—a nice touch.

The brilliant genre twist comes from the game's titular skulls. When a soldier dies, its skull stays on the battlefield, and any opponent can rush in and eat it for more power (or in the case of monks, better spells). But, whoops, this will end a troop's turn—as will claiming items, shrines, soldier stores, and rice paddies (which serve as the in-game currency).

Rushing for skulls and other loot will leave a soldier vulnerable, obviously, yet being too cautious can hurt more. After consuming three skulls, a soldier can permanently perform a bonus action during an order. Also, any shrine left unattended can be snatched up if a soldier can “haunt” it for a full turn, which kills the existing (and potentially skull-loaded) monk and doles out a brand-new one to the haunter. As a further wrinkle, the all-important general comes with a bonus action at the outset—and the more turns you go without activating him, the more powerful he becomes.

17-Bit does the right thing design-wise by letting this complex system of skulls-and-shrines form the basis of the strategy rather than trying to rely on systems of complex, asymmetrical armies. There's a surprisingly small number of soldier types to get a feel for. Other than the monk, which comes in three flavors, the rest are standard-issue infantry, cavalry, and archers.

But even those simple classes come with complex, rock-paper-scissors matchups, and they must always be positioned with an eye on SotS's cliffside conundrum. Every map comes with lakes, ridges, and other dangerous edges, and soldiers can get pushed off quite easily. So long as two or more soldiers stand next to each other, though, their feet are locked (which also creates a shield for archers to hide behind). And really, that's it. SotS has the right amount of higher-level mechanics to deepen an easy-to-control, easy-to-start battle system, and 17-Bit nerfs its soldiers' powers just enough so that one-hit kills don't blow novices out.

Xbox 360 players will occasionally wish for a mouse or touchscreen to parse so many friendly and enemy units, which they can get on the PC and mobile versions available for Windows 8, Windows RT, and Windows Phone 7.5 and 8. Only Xbox 360 enjoys live, ranked multiplayer modes; the rest are relegated to an asynchronous, no-leaderboard mode, which, to its credit, works across all four platforms.

That asynchronous mode may be the best way to play online, at any rate, considering how long players will want to take between turns. That's especially true when up to four armies compete together and weigh their orders in turn, not to mention the alliances that can be offered and broken with a button tap. There are maps that are appropriately sized for any number of players, and while most are symmetrical, the best ones force armies to rush to the center for a single resource.

Pass-and-play is a welcome local multiplayer option on phones and tablets, but be warned: SotS's finely crafted systems will drive bad players nuts. If you make a friend pay for bad tactics, don't expect your phone to survive getting hurled against a wall. Solo play is a little more forgiving, but barely; the campaign doesn't take long to raise the stakes.

The point being, SotS's five-order limit requires trial-by-fire to learn. Newcomers can enter and then determine if they need seasoning. But if you appreciate the genre in even the slightest, you'll fall madly for this game's perfectly formed, thought-provoking systems. Its skeleton, if you will.

The Good

Thoughtful limits on turn-based combat

Simple entry into incredibly deep gameplay

Balanced for two-, three-, and four-player battles

Catchy soundtrack

Smart sense of humor in the writing

The Bad

Xbox 360 version currently suffers from glitches and connectivity issues

Windows 8/RT versions lack full online options

One or two more soldier types wouldn't hurt

The Ugly

Welcome to the unnecessary hell of “only on Windows 8”

Verdict: Buy it if you already like turn-based strategy; try if you're iffy on the genre

"But even those simple classes come with complex, rock-paper-scissors matchups"

Since when is rock-paper-scissors complex?

Making units explicitly counter other units is a crutch that strategy game designers have been leaning on for years and years. It actually reduces strategy. Strategy is about making fuzzy decisions and there's nothing fuzzy about a rock being specifically designed to defeat scissors.

Granted, I just forced the update, so I'm too busy playing Start Screen to do anything else

Anyhow... I think its a smart move for Microsoft. And, as someone with two machines upgraded to Windows 8, a Windows Phone, and an Xbox 360? My only possible complain is that it looks like you have to pay for it each time: $10 in the Windows 8 market, $5 for Windows Phone, and $15 for the 360? It'd be sort of nice to pay a single price and get access to all three. That would be an absolutely KILLER feature for Microsoft's platform overall, you know?

Granted, Microsoft is a quibbling bunch of silos, similar to EA, so I'm not sure that'll happen. Hell, Apple isn't, and I don't think you can do that (buy an app, get it for OSX and iOS). Would love to be wrong, of course.

However, cross-platform play? Thank you devs! That's a very, very smart move

"But even those simple classes come with complex, rock-paper-scissors matchups"

Since when is rock-paper-scissors complex?

Making units explicitly counter other units is a crutch that strategy game designers have been leaning on for years and years. It actually reduces strategy. Strategy is about making fuzzy decisions and there's nothing fuzzy about a rock being specifically designed to defeat scissors.

RPS is a very broad description, and an easy way to describe mechanics. Virtua Fighter utilizes a RPS system (attack beats throw, throw beats block, block beats attack), but that's only the most basic of understandings for the game. Once you start getting into how the game actually plays? Yeah, its pretty complex.

Not saying that's the case here, mind you, but its possible there's more than simple counters here. It'll take a while of playing before it can be confirmed or denied, and that's assuming they don't do balance patches.

It's a shame that this is WP8 only, considering this is XNA (I know it was originally, and it stands to reason that it still is, since it is on XBox and windows phone), so there is no reason for it to not be on Windows 7.

(XNA can still compile for regular ol' windows, despite attempts to bury that behind lots of tutorials aimed at phone and XBox.)

I almost feel as though they had a licensing deal that forced them to be exclusive for Microsoft, and forced to leave Windows 7 behind.

Because there sure isn't a technical reason for it, if they are using the platform I think they are.

It's a shame that this is WP8 only, considering this is XNA (I know it was originally, and it stands to reason that it still is, since it is on XBox and windows phone), so there is no reason for it to not be on Windows 7.

(XNA can still compile for regular ol' windows, despite attempts to bury that behind lots of tutorials aimed at phone and XBox.)

I almost feel as though they had a licensing deal that forced them to be exclusive for Microsoft, and forced to leave Windows 7 behind.

Because there sure isn't a technical reason for it, if they are using the platform I think they are.

Microsoft..... you will have to do soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much more to entice me to throw more money your way for Windows 8 or the new Office Suite. So far..... this fish ain't nibblin'.

Looks like fun. If it comes to the iPad it might get me to stop playing Kingdom Rush. Spending a lot of time with Pocket Planes too

Mmmmm. Kingdom Rush ate up a lot of my time for quite a while. Were any of the expansions worth messing with?

I just bought Kingdom Rush 3 weeks ago, I haven't looked into expansions yet. I've been working my way thru the ways to earn stars to buy all the options to power my guys up. I think I'm down to the last 2 artillery and last 3 magic boosts to buy. I beat the main boss and opened up the extra areas and beat one of them so far.

Are there any Windows 8-native APIs this game could possibly use? If Microsoft's Vista-only Halo 2 was circumvented to run on XP, I'm sure it would be trivial for a group with the desire to crack this.

No. just...no. If there is enough good content that is Win8 only I would consider myself forced to take the plunge on a machine. But for a video game? it would have to be better than killer app status for me to run an OS I don't like as my primary. Such a liesure activity has yet to be invented for me to sacrifice productivity in the process of its procurment.

Win8 stays where it belongs, as a VM on a work machine to TS when someone breaks their stuff.

It's a shame that this is WP8 only, considering this is XNA (I know it was originally, and it stands to reason that it still is, since it is on XBox and windows phone), so there is no reason for it to not be on Windows 7.

(XNA can still compile for regular ol' windows, despite attempts to bury that behind lots of tutorials aimed at phone and XBox.)

I almost feel as though they had a licensing deal that forced them to be exclusive for Microsoft, and forced to leave Windows 7 behind.

Because there sure isn't a technical reason for it, if they are using the platform I think they are.

Unless they're using WinRT, the Windows 8 requirement is a totally artificial one created by Microsoft in order to try and push people to the platform. They've done that before when they needlessly made Halo 2 PC and Shadowrun PC Vista only. The result was that basically nobody bought them.

I feel for the developer in this case, they're leaving good money on the table. Maybe it'll get an iPad version at some point.

It's a shame that this is WP8 only, considering this is XNA (I know it was originally, and it stands to reason that it still is, since it is on XBox and windows phone), so there is no reason for it to not be on Windows 7.

(XNA can still compile for regular ol' windows, despite attempts to bury that behind lots of tutorials aimed at phone and XBox.)

I almost feel as though they had a licensing deal that forced them to be exclusive for Microsoft, and forced to leave Windows 7 behind.

Because there sure isn't a technical reason for it, if they are using the platform I think they are.

If I understood and remember correctly, The developers behind SotS were guests on one of the monthly Camoflaj (Republique) podcasts and when they showed the game at one of the conventions I think Microsoft approached them asking if they could make it for Windows 8. I think originally it was for 360 and PC but Microsoft nudged them to make it the way they did as part of the deal.

Can't believe how many downvotes people are getting for saying they don't like the game not working on Windows 7. Seriously?

Honestly, it's because they're looking at it the wrong way. This is an XBox game. How many XBox games get simultaneous release on XBox, PC, and smartphone? Not many. Having it on Windows at all is a major feature add, not a detriment.

Can't believe how many downvotes people are getting for saying they don't like the game not working on Windows 7. Seriously?

Honestly, it's because they're looking at it the wrong way. This is an XBox game. How many XBox games get simultaneous release on XBox, PC, and smartphone? Not many. Having it on Windows at all is a major feature add, not a detriment.

More precisely, it's an XBox Arcade game. Porting "Skulls of the Shogun" game is part of Microsoft's "Play" initiative, in which it partners with developers to bring popular XBox Arcade games to Windows.

Personally, I've bought Skulls, Hydro Hurricane, and Rocket Riot thus far and am enjoying myself. I'm on the fence about ilomilo+ so I probably won't buy that one unless the price comes down a bit, but that's another matter.

Finally devs are coming back to the good old turn based genre, I always loved it. Now I just hope they make a new mech themed turn based game that is not crap like the last one recently resealed on PS3 that was so badly made I just forgot its name...